The boys of summer 7/2

It's not mine anymore. The pool I mean. When I was a teenager I would spend endless hours at the Fassnight swimming pool. I loved the way the summer felt on my back, the water soothing the heat as it dried my skin. I loved to fight and argue back and forth on the diving board as we waited for the next to jump off into the water.

Today I visited this childhood haven. I missed the way the pool was scratched on the bottom, the water cool to my skin and the way the place hadn't changed a bit. Half expecting my old lifeguards to be looking down upon me as I did my usual breast stroke laps, diving board rounds and turns down the slide, I realized that one of the lifeguards I had just seen at Target a few weeks ago with her daughter, hadn't heard from the other three, let alone remembered their names. It was a time machine to the future for me.

The same old things still existed, the concession stand where I proudly bought two airheads and a bottle of water. I thought to myself that the 2.50 was a huge amount to my 15 year old self. Now it was nothing, change in a jar on the way out the door this afternoon.

I remember not wanting to go to Grant Beach where I lived because all the cool kids would be at fassnight. I liked the Parkview kids better, half the kids I liked at Central anyways were all too young to even think of leaving the house at their age.

I met a lot of girls when I went to that pool. One in particular still takes me back to when girls would do anything because they were mostly spending the summers with their grandmothers, were thinking of wanting to stay here and liked the thought of me. The summer nights were great back then, but not as fun as hanging with your girl at the pool. There was something elegant about them that you couldn't see. They were all the same, trying to look great, feel great and work on their tan. They didn't care who they met as long as they thought they looked good.

At the pool today I remembered what I loved about America. How in small town America there still exists swimming pools like this. Grandparents with their small grandchildren, the jr high girls trying to impress the high school boys, so they walked around like it was their different territories. The boys trying to play dumb, and trying to impress the girls. The silent whispers back and forth about who knew who from what grade. It was youth at its best.

What I realized as I made my way around, was that, now since I am married with kids, pursuing other things, that this wasn't mine anymore. I was nlo longer as youthful as I once was, I was not the same kid that could do a double gainer off the board. I wasn't that same kid who hoped to find a girl at the pool, and I didn't know anyone. It was like the whole place just kept on going without me.

The ideal of a small town swimming pool such as this brings me to one of my favorite movies of all time. The one you pop in about a million times as a kid and can recite every line. The one that I feel is the true soul and spirit of what America really is. The Sandlot.

I will not go too far into an explanation because it is my hope that some of you watch it over this 4th of July. Feel the summer night on your back as you take in a night game, taste the hot dogs, the tingle of an ice cold Coke down your throat, and the wonderful feeling of being a young man in love with a woman. The summer is magical, its full of wonder and excitement. It allows even the meekest to dream in a comfortable state about who you really truly want to be.

As a child I was a pool rat in the summer, a rink rat in the winter and I kissed the girls, enjoyed 25 cent airheads, I still LOVE hot dogs, and there is nothing like a baseball game on a warm sultry night. Yes, I can definitely say I was a boy. A boy of summer.